EDITORIAL

Should we pay attention to the COP 27 with an eye for the future? Getting bored? Or are we indifferent? In any case, it remains an event that is both essential in its form, but also caricatured in its expression of the deep divisions that prevent us from collectively making progress on challenges that concern us all, and is obsolete in its ambitions.

• Essential: Multi-stakeholder cooperation spaces that break down the barriers between perspectives, help create consensus on the problems, and explore convergences on solutions, are absolutely essential
• Cartoonish: The question of financing losses and damages has been raised for 30 years. The effectiveness of the responses deployed over the past 10 years can be improved. This report by the Climate Policy Initiative demonstrates that Africa has 11% of the financing necessary for its transition, while financial institutions are still widely criticized for their strong support of fossil fuel financing since COP 21 despite various pledges made in the interim. This is the main point that the IEA Director, Fatih Terim, stressed on at the Climate Finance Day on 27 October, in which Ksapa participated as a member of Finance For Tomorrow
• Obsolete: The surges in the cost of energy, especially fossil fuels, and its inflationary ramifications, as well as the succession of phenomena demonstrating the realization of the forecasts made by the IPCC over the past 30 years, urges us to activate the old strategic climate priorities that have been repeated for the last 20 years: reduce energy needs, decarbonize wherever possible in the value chains, and substitute renewable energy wherever possible. We no longer need a COP to finally apply these banalities and make them part of our everyday life.

In discussions with our partners, clients, and networks, we are aware of the extent to which getting closer to 2023 means that we have to navigate a highly uncertain, anxiety-inducing environment. To this end, we have identified 5 useful and important ways that will enable each of you, according to your functions and programmes, to focus your resources and energies usefully in managing this uncertainty:
 
1. Go back to the fundamentals of stakeholder engagement. Inflation, interest rates, rampant poverty, anxiety, the return of Covid...: it's a bumpy ride for teams, clients, and partners. Staying proactive, reaching out, exchanging with stakeholders to stay in touch remains an investment that will prove even more useful during a storm, as the management of the Covid crisis demonstrated in more ways than one.
2. Propose a long-term impact trajectory on essential issues of our society to employees, clients, and stakeholders. A good sailor knows where he/she wants to go. Even in the middle of a storm, he/she stays on course. And if the objective is really meaningful, it keeps the crew mobilized - provided that they start moving in that direction now.
3. Clarify the compliance issues on which, with or without resources, you will need to create alignment between stakeholders, improve programmes and ensure compliance. Climate and human rights in one way or another, through various regulatory channels and customer or investor demands, are repeatedly priorities on which companies and investors need to shift gears quickly.
4. Work on climate trajectories that are indisputable, validated by science, and consensual in their ability to carry out the necessary transformation of corporate assets, but also to avoid wasting time in endless discussions about what is and is not greenwashing.
5. Inflate the S of ESG. There can be no credible climate trajectory without robust thinking about the just transition of employees, assets, sectors, and territories. There is no unifying business project if it is not driven by a daily attention to ensure that it is inclusive and does not create working poor along its value chain.

These concerns are at the heart of the agenda of Ksapa and our international community of companies, investors, and experts across the G20 economies, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia Pacific. Winter is coming and Ksapa remains more than ever an international catalyst coming up with concrete and innovative solutions to build more sustainable and inclusive societies.
 
We look forward to meeting you soon!
 
Farid Baddache, CEO